Kelf’s Top 5 Indie Games

I have been writing so many feature articles for both Nedrunner.nl as well as other places that I figured it’s time to relax myself a bit and do something more streamlined. So why not a top 5 list? I’ve never really discussed with anyone about my favourite indie games so I thought it would be a good time to do so now. Most of the games mentioned will of course get their own review sooner or later, be it here or on IGN Greece.

So with no further delay, let’s roll.

#5 – Race The Sun

This is a game that had me hooked for months. It’s basically a game that can have you playing it like 10 minutes every single day and still enjoy it the same amount after 2 months of owning the game. The game basically lets you pilot a little plane which you try to strafe left and right so that it avoids hitting obstacles in its way. The farther you go, the faster the little plane goes and the darker the sun goes as well. So you basically have to navigate through obstacles while speeding and at the same time trying to pick up orbs that raise the sun again so that your plane doesn’t stop (because it powered by sunlight).

#4 – Bit.Trip Runner 2: Future Legend of Rhythm Alien

This game. This game’s full-of-beats music is just addictive as hell and everything else about it is beautiful as well. I’m a big fan of simplistic concepts that are delivered in the best way possible since that is what I believe art is all about. Doing something simple and making it amazing in so many ways nonetheless. The game basically is all about CommanderVideo, the star of the series, running through obstacles while the player presses buttons to help him avoid them. The hero keeps running to the rhythm of the music and the game progressively gets harder and harder.

In comparison to the first Bit.Trip: Runner game, this one pretty much followed the same principles and just made use of beautiful 3D graphics (first game in the Bit.Trip series to actually use them instead of 8bit art) to amplify the already beautiful concept of the Bit.Tip world. It also added lots of things to unlock such as characters, thus giving more incentive to complete stages.

#3 – McPixel

McPixel is by far, the best casual indie game I’ve ever played. It has humour, old-school pixel art and mind-twisting riddles that are not exactly hard, but more like weird to figure out. You are basically in control of this guy, called McPixel, who has a limited amount of time in every scene, to do things and save the world from exploding. You do this by peeing on dynamites, making people swallow grenades and throw them out of a room and even more wacky out-of-the-box ideas.

#2 – Star Conflict

Star Citizen and Elite Dangerous might have their glory and fame now for being “amazing space simulators” but for me personally, nothing will ever beat the action packed dogfights Star Conflict has to offer. This game accelerated its player base in deep space with the speed of light in a matter of a few months after its official release and despite its currently dropping numbers, the many hotfixes and patches that put new features into the game made it all the more amazing and easily accessible for new players.

In the game, you can pilot starships ranging from small close-quarters dogfighting ships to larger frigates that provide support, or even snipe opponents with well aimed precision strikes.

#1 – Awesomenauts

Nauts, as we, the veteran Awesomenauts players like to call it, is a game that was created by Ronimo, an indie company in the heart of Utrecht, Holland and quickly managed to attract lots of players to its beautifully designed gameplay. The game is a standard moba-style game with a 2D twist and only 3vs3 players at any time. The 2D element and the fact that you have to aim your abilities, pretty much makes most abilities and skills in the game be skill-shots thus providing a whole new stage of difficulty that players have to go through.

The game has lots of characters who have 1 basic attack and 2 special abilities and each character is different than the other. Once you get in game, the items you can buy with the solar (gold) you collect during the game basically upgrade your abilities or give them extra effects.

I’ve had my fair share of playtime on this game (about a thousand hours…) and I’ve done both casual and competitive, so I can safely say that it’s a title worth your time, even if you are just looking for something to burn some of your evening time. The art is beautiful, the gameplay is amazing and the soundtrack of the game is good too. Regarding the OST, it has to be mentioned that Sonic Picnic did, and still does, an amazing work on it for both character themes as well as game themes.

So that was it. That was my top 5 list of favourite indie games and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing about them.

Next up, I’m preparing an article around the topic of Star Citizen and how despite the promises that its devs have given thus far, it’s probably not gonna make it. It sounds amazing, but some facts and arguments are just right up against those promises at the moment.

So until next time, relax, play some indies games and make sure to visit the blog again in the near future for new articles!